Things to do in London this weekend (13-14 December)

In scenes only slightly less dramatic and probably far more entertaining than the Grand National, more than 40 pantomime horses (plus a few pretenders in the form of zebras and cows) will gallop through Greenwich on this race, dodging bizarre obstacles, stopping at the local public houses for ‘refuelling’ breaks and generally horsing around, all while raising money for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. This year's theme is ‘Rockstars’ meaning you can expect horsey acts including Beatles tribute The Fab Foals, Liam & Noel Gallopher and Amy Winehorse. There’ll also be plenty of entertainment throughout the day, including an opening procession on King William Walk, and an after-party with live music, comedy and DJs. There may even be a celebrity appearance or two. Everybody’s welcome at the bash. 

Spoiler alert: ‘Paddington’ is a small woman (Arti Shah) in a bear costume (by Gabriella Slade), with a regular-sized man (James Hameed) doing the voice and remote controlling the facial expressions from backstage, and it’s enough to make us believe that Paddington is really in the room with us. He’s not the Paddington of the films or of Michael Bond’s books, but he’s not really him either, on account of all the singing he does and how much more wordy that makes him. He is a new Paddington. But he is, fundamentally, Paddington, right there in the room with us. Main attraction aside, a fine creative team led by director Luke Sheppard has created a very enjoyable show indeed. It’s by and large a stage adaptation of the first Paddington movie, although writer Jessica Swale has been quite free. It has a looser, more knockabout air, less droll, more cartoonish. It’s a luxury musical, and when the maximalism works, it really works.

At Sabiib aesthetically pleasing plates all demand a moment of admiration, from the hummus oodkac (traditional dried beef jerky) and meat sambus (filo pastry parcels) with homemade spicy bisbaas sauce, to nafaqo (mashed sweet potato, sauteed spinach and mixed veg) with a meat of your choice. Not playing about? Get a platter to share, featuring Sabiib’s signature haniid (slow-cooked lamb shoulder) and your other chosen meat. Round it off with some Somali-style pasta and sabaayad (flatbread), perfect for mopping up your platter.

At first sight, Candice Lin’s g/hosti, a new commission from the Whitechapel Gallery, evokes a childlike playfulness. At its centre is a maze of cardboard panels which are painted with animals like dogs, cats, and mice, cavorting in a mythical forest. Its simplistic style and bright, warm colours feel akin to the sort of whimsical mural you might find painted on the wall of a primary school. The more you weave through the circular labyrinth, however, the more you realise you’re immersed in something altogether more sinister and political than first meets the eye. g/hosti is a show that could be misconceived if you do not linger long enough to absorb its hidden details. The more it unfolds, the more it unsettles and makes you think. 

You might think that Camden is too alternative to throw a classic Christmas knees up, but it's 2025 and times have changed at its sprawling, eclectic markets. The shiny new market at Hawley Wharf is the hub of this year's festivities, with tons of family-friendly activities. The Ice Palace Grotto offers a meet-and-greet opportunity with Father Christmas and Mother Christmas, alongside festive crafts, face-painting and decorations (£10 per ticket). The Wharf will also host live musical performances from the Big Sing and Camden Rock Choir.

Had more festive goodwill and cheer than you can stomach? The Satanic Flea Market’s (anti) Christmas special is the perfect antidote. As always, there’ll be a whole range of traders selling stuff from the darker side of life, like taxidermy, occult trinkets and even human skulls, plus other slightly more unusual goods than you might find at your typical Christmas market. It might not be the kind of place where you can get all your gifts sorted under one roof, but at least you won’t hear ‘Last Christmas’ or any other saccharine festive hits as you’re making your way around.

St Mary’s Church Islington will lead a festive carol service accompanied by the Christmas story from the Bible this Yuletide. The church will be lit up by hundreds of flames with every visitor given their own candle. A classical choir will lead the carolling in what promises to be an atmospheric evening. 

Fallen Angels is a nicely crafted old-fashioned pleasure. Or certainly in this straight-down-the-line period revival. Julia (Janie Dee) and Jane (Alexandra Gilbreath) are middle-aged best friends. Julia is posh and poised. Jane is posh and shambolic. They are spending the weekend together while their distant husbands go off golfing. But things get spicy, quickly: they receive word that Maurice, a Frenchman they both had sexual relationships with before marriage, is in town and intending to visit them. They freak out and start drinking heavily, convinced that Maurice will want to play hide the saucisson with them both. And they’re sorely tempted to sample his charcuterie. In this slick-but-conservative take it’s fun enough, but it was genuinely ahead of its time 100 years ago. 

In a world of mass-produced, identikit homewares, there's something special about giving a gift that's so homemade it's got the makers' signature carved lovingly on the bottom. Find a memorable mug, bowl or plate to give a loved one at Turning Earth's Winter Ceramics Market, which will showcase pottery of every colour and shape under the sun. It's got 120 ceramicists selling their wares at Turning Earth's Highgate premises, alongside street food and live music. Smashing. 

Nothing says ‘I’ve put a lot of thought into this’ more than a one-of-a-kind Christmas present. So if you’re looking to make someone feel special this Crimbo, at the Battersea Power Station Christmas market you’ll be able to pick up totally unique gifts and support independent business. The Salad Days Market will be open for three weekends in December with more than 30 indie makers on site to shop from. The station is also hosting the Your Brand, Your Story pop-up market in the South Atrium, which will have eight small businesses selling a mix of gifts and treats including fashion, jewellery and perfume, open until early January. 

OOF Gallery – the world’s only contemporary art gallery in a football stadium at Tottenham Hotspur’s ground – is showing the first ever exhibition dedicated to the portrayal of football in photographer Roger Mayne’s work. One of Britain’s most acclaimed street photographers, Mayne’s inner-city scenes from ’50s and ’60s London document a seismic period of postwar social change in the UK, and football is at the heart of so many of his photographs, especially of the children he captured, playing jumpers for goalposts-style games in the street. It’s children living totally free – joy against the odds and the simple ecstasy of youth.

There’s something magical about the way Swedes hold carol services. This traditional Lucia service sees the Ulrika Eleonora Church Choir wear angelic white gowns and process through the church wearing crowns of green leaves on their head and holding candles, before singing carols in a candlelit church led by director of music Fredrik Karlsson, to mark Advent and Christmas. As well as performing at their own church, they’ll also be taking the glowing concert to several other illustrious venues, including St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral. 

A blockbuster poster exhibition celebrating 100 years of the art deco style comes to the London Transport Museum. Visitors will be able to pore over more than 100 original 1920s and 1930s transport posters and poster artworks, alongside photography, short films, ceramics and other objects to mark the centenary of the 1925 Paris exhibition where the style originated. Highlights include designs by Edward McKnight Kauffer, Dora Batty and Jean Dupas, including some rarely seen vintage posters. 

Sack off wholesome festive fun and head to the Divine for a night of unadulterated Christmas debauchery instead. Spread out across the venue’s two floors, drag queens Coco Couture, Lucinda B. Hind and Femmi will front the Chrimbo sesh, alongside DJs Princess Julia, Jane Norman and Jonjo Jury. Stay lubricated with the Divine’s special festive cocktails, like its winter cherry negroni, white chocolate Bumbo espresso martini and prolapse fairy shot (made with Bumbu creme rum and raspberry liquor). 

John le Carré breakthrough The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is in safe hands with playwright David Eldridge and director Jeremy Herrin, whose adaptation settles in at the West End after scoring good notices in Chichester. This is a slick and yes, maybe slightly MOR adaptation of Le Carre’s taut, brutal espionage yarn. But it’s a very good one, and Eldridge deftly crafts an intensely interior world, with us seeing the action unfold as much from within jaded spy protagonist Alec Leamas’s head as without. Herrin’s production goes heavy on the noir, and with good reason. Rory Keenan is magnificently grumpy and rumpled as Leamas, a hardbitten British spy in Cold War Berlin who is brought home after his last informer is executed by Hans-Dieter Mundt, a ruthless counterintelligence agent who has systematically dismantled the British spy apparatus in East Germany. The story feels fresh because Keenan’s it feels like Leamas is really living it – those shocking final hairpin plot twists are still jaw-dropping.

Cementing the Lyric Hammersmith’s place at the top of the London panto pantheon, here’s a wonderfully inventive new take on Jack and the Beanstalk for 2025. Returning writer Sonia Jalay and director Nicolai La Barrie are impressively assured as they relocate the bean-centric action to a strict Hammersmith school concealing a sinister secret. The imperious grandeur of regular Lyric dame Emmanuel Akwafo is somewhat missed, although replacement Sam Harrison is great fun when he’s allowed off the leash. It’s pepped up by a wonderfully chosen barrage of pop songs that runs the gamut from ‘Seven Nation Army’ to ‘Espresso’, ‘Formation’ to a version of ‘Pretty Fly for a White Guy’ about Ofsted inspections. There are some great visual gags, too. Superbly done as ever, and an object lesson in how London pantomime not only survives, but actively thrives.

Sweet, shy Colin is having a shit time. His mother is terminally ill (but still trying to set him up with inappropriate men), his only hobby is barbershop quartet singing with his father, and to top it all, he’s a parking attendant. Played with wide-eyed bemusement by an outstanding Harry Melling, Colin’s dreary existence changes dramatically when he meets very tall, exceedingly handsome and inscrutable biker Ray in a Bromley boozer. Ray, a fittingly stern Alexander Skarsgård, propositions him over a bag of crisps, and before he knows it, Colin’s licking Ray’s boots (and rather a lot more) by the bins next to Primark. Pillion starts as it means to go on; aligning its oddly innocent nature with extreme, hardcore imagery, and managing to give screwball humour an emotional gravitas. Think, if you will, Kenneth Anger’s horny, leather-clad opus Scorpio Rising as directed by Richard Curtis. 

Expectations have been high for Ivo van Hove’s revival of Arthur Miller’s 1947 breakthrough All My Sons, because Van Hove made his own UK breakthrough with his extraordinary 2014 production of Miller’s A View from the Bridge. And by Hove, he’s done it again. To some extent the secret of his triumph here is ‘cast really really good actors’, foremost Bryan Cranston and Paapa Essiudu, who offer two of the best stage performances of 2025. But what van Hove has done is discretely uncouple Miller’s play from the naturalism that often stifles it. The whole thing plays out symphonically, building to an astonishing crescendo. Right near the end, Joe finally says the play’s name, its meaning clear at last. When I’ve seen the play before, there’s been no special reaction. Here, the audience gasped.

★★★★ 'Frameless has managed to create something genuinely exciting' – Time Out

Escape reality through maximum immersion and experience 42 masterpieces from 29 of the world’s most iconic artists, each reimagined beyond belief, through cutting-edge technology. Situated in Marble Arch, Frameless plays host to four unique galleries with hypnotic visuals and a dazzling score. Enjoy 90 minutes of surreal artwork from Bosch, Dalí and more for just £24!

Get £24.80 tickets (originally £31), only through Time Out Offers.

This exhibition will put the work of two rivals – and two of Britain’s greatest painters – J.M.W. Turner and John Constable side by side. Although both had different paths to success, they each became recognised as stars of the art world and shared a connection to nature and recreating it in their landscape paintings. Explore the pair’s intertwined lives and legacies and get new insight into their creativity via sketchbooks, personal items and must-see artworks.

‘Blue moon, you saw me standing alone’ runs the line from songwriting double-act Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s classic ballad, and Boyhood director Richard Linklater’s long-term collaborator Ethan Hawke transforms into the rumpled, melancholy Hart. He slouches in the washed-up man’s shrunken frame and balding crown. Down on his luck and drinking heavily, his once-grand writing partnership with Rodgers (a sharply tuxedoed Andrew Scott) has been dashed, thanks to his increasing unreliability. It hurts on a bone-deep level. Linklater knows how to draw the most intimate performances from Hawke – and he’s brilliant here. His pairing with Andrew Scott, so devastating in All of Us Strangers, is note-perfect. 

Prepare for a feast for the eyes, but resist the urge to nibble! The sweetest festive event you’ll find, the Museum of Architecture’s edible exhibition tasks leading architects and designers to ditch their conventional building materials for dough bricks and sugar paste mortar to construct a miniature biscuit metropolis erected in King’s Cross’s Coal Drops Yard for the festive season. With a new theme each year, the exhibition aims to encourage innovation and future-forward city planning, and this year’s ‘Playful City’ theme has resulted in some really fun designs, from school buildings with slides between classrooms to candy-coloured climbing walls. As well as marvelling at all the confectionary craftsmanship on display, visitors can take part in a series of hands-on gingerbread house workshops where they’ll be able to construct a delicious souvenir to take home. 

Imagine indulging in all the dumplings, rolls, and buns you can handle, crafted by a Chinatown favourite with over a decade of culinary excellence. Savour Taiwanese pork buns, savoury pork and prawn soup dumplings, and luxurious crab meat xiao long bao. To top it off, enjoy a chilled glass of prosecco to elevate your feast. Cheers to a truly delightful dining experience at Leong’s Legend!

Amazing news for lovers of neat symmetry, loud primary colours and twee outfits. West London’s Design Museum will be staging a blockbuster show delving into the iconic aesthetic of another of Hollywood’s most distinctive auteurs, the Texas-born Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning director Wes Anderson. The film director’s first official retrospective promises to be a different beast. A collaboration between the Design Museum and Cinémathèque Française, it has been curated in partnership with Wes Anderson himself and his production company American Empirical Pictures and follows his work from his early experiments in the 1990s right up to his recent Oscar-winning flicks, featuring original props, costumes and behind-the-scenes insights.

Love sushi, dumplings or noodles? Inamo’s got you covered. This high-tech spot in Soho or Covent Garden lets you order from interactive tabletops, play over 20 games while you wait and even doodle on your table. Then it’s all you can eat pan-Asian dishes like Sichuan chicken, red dragon rolls and Korean wings with bottomless drinks. Usually £113.35, now just £33 or £26 if you're in early at the weekend!

Get Inamo’s best ever bottomless food & drink brunch from only £26 with Time Out Offers.

Dreaming of a kitsch Christmas? New York’s famous Miracle on Ninth Street bar is popping up in London for its seventh year, ‘50s Christmas decorations, nostalgic accessories and creative new spins on beloved cocktail favourites in tow. Past years have seen the bar slinging the likes of a Snowball Old Fashioned or a Christmapoliton, which includes cranberry sauce and absinthe mist – a take on Christmas trimmings that’s not for the faint-hearted. If you’re failing to get into the Christmas spirit, this is one great place to find it.

Maggi Hambling and Sarah Lucas are good friends. Since meeting on their shared birthday, they have portrayed each other in paint and sculpture, shown their work together multiple times and, perhaps, developed something of a shared sensibility. On the surface, Hambling’s gestural, subconsciously macabre canvases have little in common with Lucas’ euphemistic sculptural assemblages. This year, though, a joint presentation at Sadie Coles HQ and Frankie Rossi Art Projects on Bury Street will tease out hidden commonalities between the two canonical British artists.

’Tis the season for rampant consumerism, but if all the covetable clobber, shiny new tech and luxury knick-knacks are failing to fill the void, you’d do well to swing by the Choose Love store during your Christmas shopping spree. First set up in 2017 by Help Refugees, the clever pop-up doesn’t peddle fancy beauty products or the latest trainers. Instead, its shelves are filled with emergency blankets, children’s shoes, sleeping bags, toiletries, mobile phone credit, nappies, education supplies and other essentials needed by refugees around the world. Once you’ve bought what you can, the products are distributed via more than 80 projects that the humanitarian aid organisation works with across the globe. After several successful years on nearby Carnaby Street, the pop-up has moved into a department store-sized space on Regent Street for its biggest ever edition this year. Head down to check out a beautifully-designed space which is once again designed by Misty Buckley (The Oscars, The BRIT Awards) and will be set across two floors, with the usual roster of surprise celebrity volunteers working on the tills, and to do your bit to spread some Christmas cheer to those who need it most.

Every year, thousands of professional and amateur photographers around the world submit their best portraits to The Taylor Wessing Photo Prize – a contest that has helped launch the careers of many top photographers. Around 60 finalists are selected and put on display at the National Portrait Gallery, giving an insight into the lives of friends and family of those behind the lens, or capturing a moment in time with stars in the spotlight. One image will take home the big prize, while the annual ‘In Focus’ display will feature a new work by an established photographer.